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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Pin-speration!

Well, a while back I discovered myself on board a bandwagon that I had kept telling myself I wasn't going to jump on. But seriously, I am SO glad I did! Even though Pinterest is quite addicting, I can honestly say that it has been a LOT more useful in my every day life than so many other things that I've found myself sucked into. I kept seeing all of these great pins with fabulous organizational ideas, which I definitely need HELP with! Something I especially need help with all the time is creative ways to help keep my kids motivated to do their chores! There were literally HUNDREDS of fantastic ideas for chore motivation that I spent countless hours perusing. Of course, when I look for things like this I have to consider that I need something that will cover all my bases, and when I say bases, I mean all 4 of my kids. I had my kids in pairs and the older 2 kids are currently 14 & 12 (soon to be 13) and the younger 2 kids are currently 7 & 5 (soon to be 6). So I definitely wanted to find something that will work for both my older kids and my younger kids. I found the punch card idea on Pinterest and instantly saw the motivational potential that would encompass both age groups. If only I could find a template or already made punch card that would suite my specific needs!
Alas, I did not find what I was looking for so I spent a little time outlining what I wanted from these chore punch cards. Then I went onto pinterest and looked at as many of them as I could to get ideas so that I could try my hand at designing my own!
I wanted the punch cards to give them the opportunity to earn money for doing extra chores. My older kids, especially, are always asking about ways they can earn money to buy things that they want so I thought this would be a great way to incorporate that. Their opportunity to earn money would also be very nice for me & Rich since it would lighten our house keeping load a bit, which is fantastic for two very busy parents that also work full-time. I also wanted the punch cards to incorporate the regular chores that they do each day as part of their family responsibilities. The kids each have 2 chores they are responsible for each day and they switch off every other week so I made up 4 different punch cards with those chores on them. Then I made up a list of chores that the kids could do to earn money. The list has each chore numbered and when they do one of the chores they just write the number in the punch space.
I am really excited to see how well this punch card chore system is received and if it is a good way to keep them motivated to do their chores! I'll have to let you know but in the mean time here is what I came up with.

I posted the Paid Chores List on the bulletin board for them to reference and I think we are going to get this party started!!!
*I did save these punch cards as a template that can be fully customized so if you're interested in using it just leave a comment!